life as i know it...: prayer as the only salvation

I am truly blessed in my life. I have the most wonderfully supportive family and the dearest friends. And I have an absolutely amazing husband and a sweet canine son who lights up my life. With so many blessings, I feel enormous guilt when I complain. And yet lately, I feel like my complaints are far outnumbering my expressions of gratitude.

As a warning, I must say that this post may be more of a venting session than anything else. I am filled with so much frustration, anxiety, and fear these days that I have literally reached a point of desperation. For nearly six weeks now, I have been fighting with horrible bouts of dizziness. The incapacitating kind of dizziness where the world will not seem to remain still for longer than a few moments and everyday activities are nearly impossible to accomplish. The chronic sense of imbalance is punctuated by periods of severe vertigo and I feel helpless to find any relief. After being sent to the hospital last week, I was diagnosed with benign positional vertigo. However, as much as I would like to trust the doctor and the diagnosis, my symptoms do not seem to match the diagnosis based on what I have read. My dizziness is much more chronic and long-lasting than what is suggested by the diagnosis. And yet I do not know what to do beyond trusting the doctors. I will see an internist next week and am praying with all my heart that this new doctor can find the source of the dizziness and help to alleviate it. In the meantime, I'm stumbling around, trying to keep the anxiety at bay.

While part of the anxiety comes directly from feeling so out of control with the dizziness, there is another piece of anxiety that haunts me each day. Being on my internship/residency, I am allowed only a few days off for the entire year. Taking a sick day is a big deal, and yet what other option do I have when I cannot function? It is a situation that leaves me overwhelmed with anxiety and frustration. And add on top of that my upcoming defense for my dissertation (which is scheduled 12 days from now). Maintaining focus and concentration is a task in itself, and not one that I feel very successful with these days.

On a positive note, we will finally be going home for a visit to Georgia in less than two weeks now. I can hardly wait to see all my family and friends, and to feel the comforts of home once again. I have so many wonderful thoughts about our upcoming trip, and yet those good thoughts are also tainted by the fears associated with the ongoing episodes of dizziness. Driving 2000 miles in one week will undoubtedly be extremely difficult unless I am able to get substantial relief between now and then. And so even my "happy place" feels haunted at the moment.

There is so much weight on my shoulders in this moment, and yet I feel I have no right to complain. There are so many people in this world with problems much greater than the obstacles I am currently facing. Many of those people fight their battles with courage and strength, and here I am complaining about dizziness and missing days of work. I keep praying for peace, for God's calming strength to wash over me, for guidance, and for forgiveness of my complaints. Prayer is the only possible solution I can see right now. Prayer is my only salvation.